My Angel

by Beverly Rae

  Josh sat on a short stool, the one piece of furniture in the room filled with football memorabilia. Posters from every professional and college football team in existence lined the walls, while knickknacks and other souvenir items sporting various team logos and colors lay stacked one on top of the other. Only a space the size of a small office was left free of clutter.

  “Don’t blame Walter. I’m the one you should punish.” He rose and placed himself between the two angels. “However, I don’t regret a single second of my time with Cara.” Her image floated through his mind, giving him the strength to continue. “What’s more, I wish I could have stayed with her.” He cringed at the snarl the head angel shot him and held his resolve. “Go ahead, sir. I’m ready for whatever consequence you feel you should give me.”

  The One-Who-Knows-Almost-All picked up an orange and black football, and threw it at Walter, barely missing his head. “You’re lucky I don’t demote you to servant angel.”

  Seeing Walter hesitate and knowing what he’d like to say, Josh decided to take up the challenge for the both of them. If not, they’d spend Eternity alone and in heartache. “We want to go back.”

  “You what?” The highest ranking angel in Angel Recruitment and Training raised his chin, daring Josh to repeat his words.

  “We want to go back. Now.” Josh swallowed, envisioned Cara’s beautiful face and kept on going. “We want to return to a mortal state and stay with the women we love.”

  Walter gawked at him as if he’d spat cockroaches out of his mouth. “We?”

  What is wrong with him? Why can’t the guy stand up for what he wants? Good thing he had Josh to give him a backbone. “Yeah. We. Or are you telling me you don’t want to be with Tilly?”

  Walter’s bushy eyebrows dropped into a single line toward the bridge of his nose. At long last, however, his lips tilted upward as he turned toward The One-Who-Knows-Almost-All. “Yeah. We. I do want to return to Tilly. Now.” Standing up taller, he nodded and crossed his arms over his chest, even as his tone mellowed into a plea. “Please?”

  The top angel scowled at them, sending a wave of energy crashing through a tower of colorful helmets. “I don’t believe this. He allows you two to experience life because Josh never had the chance, and this is how you repay Him? How dare you?”

  “How dare we?” Josh stomped over to him and crooked his head to stare up at him. “Of course we dare. How could He expect me to taste life as a mortal and not want to have more? I want what I should have had the first time. I want to live.”

  The rage, the fury building on The One-Who-Knows-Almost-All’s face threatened to make Josh change his mind. But he refused to buckle under and he called all his inner strength to bear. Too much was at stake for him to give up. Too much love and too much living. Instead of cowering, he took another step forward, craning his neck more to keep his gaze locked on the head angel.

  “You had no right to fall in love with a mortal being.”

  “True enough. But you have no right to keep me from her. I’m in love and nothing, not even Eternity, will ever change the way I feel.”

  They glared at each other, the silence growing as the tension around them gathered strength. At long last, The One-Who-Knows-Almost-All whirled around, keeping his face averted. Josh held his breath and waited, knowing his superior would make a decision and pass a ruling soon. Yet when The One-Who-Knows-Almost-All spun around to confront Josh, he was unprepared for what came rushing toward him.

  A blazing red light zipped between the two angels: one a mere trainee and the other one of the most powerful angels in Heaven. Walter shouted something in warning, but Josh couldn’t understand the words. Heat, hotter than he’d thought possible, ate through his body as it traveled from his toes to his hair. Pain, greater than he would have wished on his worst enemy, pounded in his gut and he had to struggle to remain upright. The force of the ache, the brilliance of the light, brought him to his knees moments before he blacked out.

  Chapter Four

  “Okay, I don’t get this. Why all the yelling at Walter and Joshua? Since our last conversation, I got the impression you wanted Joshua and Cara to fall in love. Or have I misunderstood this whole situation?” Messa crossed her arms over her chest and waited for The-One-Who-Knows-Almost-All to explain.

  The anger he’d shown on his face was gone, replaced by an enormous grin. “No, you aren’t mistaken. Your initial assessment was right.”

  “It was?” Would she ever learn the ins and outs of being a supervising angel? How could she ever manage fledgling angels of her own when her superior kept playing mind games? “I’m confused. Are you telling me you wanted Joshua and Cara to get together?”

  The-One-Who-Knows-Almost-All tapped his index finger to the tip of his nose. “Now you’ve got it.”

  “Urgh. No, I don’t. Please clarify.” Maybe she should’ve signed up for The Greeting Committee and spent her time meeting recently deceased souls at The Gate. Welcoming people into Heaven had to be easier than this job.

  Her mentor sat on an invisible chair. “Here’s what happened. As you know, Joshua came to us right after he was born. However, you didn’t know his death had been a mistake. He was supposed to live a long and happy life.” He nodded at the image of a sad and tormented Cara. “When he didn’t, Cara lost the man she was supposed to marry.”

  Messa glanced at the image and back to her mentor. “But what about all this you have no right to fall in love with a mortal being crap?”

  He scoffed at her. “I’m getting pretty good, aren’t I? You couldn’t tell I was acting?”

  Had her supervisor supervised once too often? Better to play along than to get a thunderbolt thrust in her head. “Wow. You are good.” She checked to see if he’d bought her answer.

  “I am, aren’t I?” His chest puffed out a bit more than usual. “Joshua and Walter certainly believed me.”

  “So this was the plan all along? To give Joshua back his life and his love?”

  “I’m happy to say it was.”

  “But what about Walter? Why return him to Earth and his lover? After all, he lived a long life well before coming here.”

  The-One-Who-Knows-Almost-All gave a shrug. “You’re right. He did. But Josh is going to need all the help he can get. If you haven’t noticed by now, Cara’s a bit of a handful.”

  * * * *

  Images of Cara’s bright green eyes, twinkling and mischievous, came to him in the darkness. He reached out, fighting to hold onto the vision, wanting to feel her hand in his. Calling her name, he groped blindly as the world surrounding him slowly materialized.

  “Josh?”

  He could hear her voice breaking through the sting, the stabbing hurt, cutting through the red light. “Cara?”

  A blaring roar broke through his misery, jerking him into awareness. Walter, as unsteady on his feet as Josh, held his arm as they stood in the middle of the road outside Cara’s apartment complex.

  “Move!” Yanking Walter with him, Josh threw his body toward the grass. The eighteen-wheeler roared by, shooting gravel at them as it narrowly missed striking them. They hit the ground, rolled several times until they banged into a lamppost, with Walter landing on top. The resounding crack meant nothing to Josh as he pushed Walter’s hefty body off him. Grayness threatened to take him again as a horrendous throbbing coursed through him, searing along his arm on its way to his shoulder.

  “Josh!”

  Trying to push up with the other arm, he swiveled as best he could toward Cara. “Hi.”

  “Oh, shit. Josh, I think you broke your arm.” Cara’s perplexed expression fixated on his forearm, bent at an impossibly odd angle.

  “I did?” How could his arm twist around in such an unnatural way? Should his arm hurt this much? Yet even in pain, the exhilaration took over. “We made it, Walter. He sent us back.” With his good arm, he made a fist in the air, but soon changed it into an outstretched hand. “Could someone help me up?”

  As Walter lifted hi
m to his feet, Josh reached out for the woman he loved. Yet instead of Cara coming to him, Tilly wrapped her arm around his waist while keeping her gaze on Walter. The two lovebirds held onto him, treating him like a lifeline between them.

  Why wouldn’t Cara come closer? He watched her, emotions altering her features. Was she happy he’d returned? Or had he misunderstood their relationship?

  “How can you have a broken arm?”

  Her question caught him off guard. He’d fought a powerful angel to return to her and she couldn’t say anything except to ask about his arm? Breaking free from Walter and Tilly, Josh stepped away from them, letting the two lovers clutch each other instead of him. “Don’t you have anything else you want to say? Just ‘how can you have a broken arm’?” He gaped at her, hurt battling with confusion. “How about Josh, I’m so glad you came back to me?” What was wrong with her? Didn’t she get what had happened? Didn’t she understand the sacrifice he’d made? If he didn’t know better, he’d think she didn’t care about him. Could it be true? Maybe she didn’t care?

  “You can’t have a broken arm.”

  She’s still stuck on my arm problem. No matter how he felt, he’d have to deal with her appendage fascination before he could get to the important matter. “Yes, I can.”

  “But how?” The lines in her forehead eased a bit as she reached out to skim her fingers over his arm. The throbbing intensified and he sucked in air for relief.

  She didn’t understand. Inhaling a long slow breath, he took the biggest leap of faith he’d ever taken. Bigger than any leap from a bungee jump or a plane. “Cara, my arm’s broken because I’m human. I’m mortal through and through. For you. For us. So we can be together.” He searched her wide eyes. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Her silence was more painful than any broken arm. Still, he couldn’t relent. “I mean, that’s if you want the same thing, of course. I wouldn’t try to force anything on you.” A quick glimpse of Walter and Tilly entwined in each other’s arms, their attention only on each other, left no doubt he wouldn’t get any help from them. “Do you? Do you want me?”

  Cara’s mouth opened and closed several times before she managed to speak. When she did, however, she swept his soul into her hands and cradled him to her heart.

  “Damn straight I do.”

  Josh let out a wild whoop as Cara pulled him to her, pressing her breasts against his chest and her lips to his. “Ow!”

  “Oh, crap, Josh. I’m sorry. I forgot.” She lurched away from him, her hands flying to her mouth.

  Yet, despite the sting racing through his limb, he brought her back to him. “Don’t worry about it.” Pausing to take a quick breath, he whispered, “Besides, something tells me living with you means a lot of broken bones in my future.”

  Cara laughed, her red hair flying behind her with a gust of wind from another eighteen-wheeler whooshing past them. Taking him by the hand, she led him to her car. “You’re going to love the folks in the emergency room. They’re really good friends of mine.”

  About The Author

  Beverly tried her hand at many careers until she found the perfect career. She was a professional singer, a secretary, a programmer’s assistant, a retail computer salesperson, a teacher and a party consultant. She even owned her own singles newsletter. Yet all these jobs didn’t excite her. Then she found love. Talk about exciting!

  Little did she know how much her husband, the man of her dreams and her best friend, would change her life. Through his support, she’s doing the jobs she was born to do. First and foremost, she’s “Mom” to a gentle, talented and beautiful child. Next, she’s partner and best friend to a romantic and loving man she calls her “hero.” But her family knew she needed more in her life and kept supporting her through a series of misadventures and mishaps they laughingly call her “career search.” Then one day, her husband said, “I think you’d be a great writer. You’re always writing things. So why not write that book you’ve always talked about?” And you know what? She did and hasn’t stopped. Her passion has now become her obsession.

  Readers can find her witty, sexy, romantic action-packed stories on her website at www.beverlyrae.com. Beverly is always working on her next book, taking the “usual” and twisting it into the “unusual.”

  Beverly can be reached at this email:

  info@beverlyrae.com

  Beverly’s website is located at:

  http://www.beverlyrae.com